


Keith Gets Jailtime

by cryptidsarereal



Series: i guess i’m putting them here coz they all in the same verse kinda [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith gets jailtime, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, NOW THAT should be a tag, Pidge is the real hero here, Prison, Prison Keith, Prisonbreak, Space Husbands, i mean. we all knew it was bound to happen sooner than later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 14:18:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidsarereal/pseuds/cryptidsarereal
Summary: “I honestly can’t think of anything you could be sorry about— Oh yes! You forgot your promised dinner date with me. I got a call about your death penalty on our anniversary!”Shiiiiiiiittttttake mushrooms. No wonder he didn’t come to visit sooner.“Just to be clear, you’re mad about the dinner date and not the death penalty, right?”“Fuck you, asshole!”Featuring prison Keith, sexy angry Lance, prison breaks, Pidge our god and saviour, mental cosmic meltdown Keith, and a cabin hanging down from a stalactite. And a summary too long it got edited.Also there’s a velociraptor somewhere.go ahead, click away.





	Keith Gets Jailtime

 

 

Keith fucked up real bad this time, that’s for sure.

He hadn’t made a single mistake in all the time he was working against the Alliance- but the last one, that mission was sloppy. Maybe because it’s hitting too close to home, to his family, Voltron. Maybe because this time what used to be hypothetical conspiracies were starting to become a real threat, and that protective side of him is throwing him off course.

Somewhere in the depths of Keith’s consciousness, the Galra blood in him tuts in disappointment, _I told you, affection clouds judgement._

_And now you’re incarcerated as your own kin._

Keith sunk lower in the cot the alien militia was merciful enough to provide. At least, they weren’t treating him as badly as he thought they would. Which doesn’t provide him any sort of comfort when he is being interrogated by his own team. They all sat outside his cell, looking at him with so much intensity and disbelief that Keith feels the cell barrier was put there to protect _him_ , if one of them decides to lash out.

Shiro was shouting at him, if that makes things any worse. “Goddammit, Keith! What the hell do you even think you’re doing? What good fucking endpoint did you even see that could come out of this?”

The hairs on his neck raised. Shiro never raised his voice, never in the years they stayed together as a team. Not even when he went headfirst into trouble, no. He’d work up his frustration, but Shiro can’t really keep the heat of his anger.

Now, though. When he’s in the wrong side of Shiro’s intimidation, Keith feels bad for all the Galra that got a taste of their leader’s venom.

Keith was feeling bad for a lot of things, lately.

“Why? Why go into secured archives without permission? Why threaten the Alliance you yourself helped to build? Why- why kill all those people, Keith?”. There was so much betrayal in his voice that Keith couldn’t bear to keep eye contact with him, couldn’t keep himself upright. 

Allura was there right beside Shiro, staring intently at Keith through the barrier. She was holding up a show, looking regal over the other Alliance representatives in the room but Keith knows she’s dying to have an equally (if not more) fired up round on Keith. Coran was there too, looking sternly at him. They were all waiting for him to confess, Keith realised, not even doubting that he might not have done what they were all accusing him of.

Keith wasn’t entirely innocent for all accounts but he can’t help feeling hurt by their little faith.

Even Pidge, sitting with their expression completely closed off behind their glasses, doesn’t offer any assistance. Well, after tricking Pidge into hacking into the archives, he wasn’t really expecting any consolation from them.

And beside them, with Hunk hovering close by protectively, sat Lance. He had his old parka with its hood on, staring at the floor. He couldn’t see clearly from this angle but Keith aches to know what kind of face he’s making. Aches to see Lance face, just that really. But Lance keeps his head down, and doesn’t make any movement besides the constant twisting of his ring where his hands sat bonelessly on his lap.

Keith’s right hand twitches in the sheets, fighting the urge to do the same.

“Look at me, Keith!”, Shiro barks sharply enough to force Keith’s attention from Lance, “Being a paladin of Voltron can only give you enough privileges, it can’t save you from this crime.” Keith blinks, stung. _Crime_ was a strong word coming from Shiro. “You better start talking now, before I even forget you were one of us.”

Whatever he did, he did for the right reasons. Good reasons.

“I- I’ll speak with Allura, nobody else,” he grits out.

The alien representatives look at each other, then apparently coming up to a decision, nods at Allura. The rest of team Voltron stand in attention as the aliens move to take their leave. Keith watched as his friends walked out of the holding room, suddenly desperate to catch Lance’s eye even for a brief moment.

Shiro walks out last, looking at Keith sadly.

“Shiro—“, Keith starts but Shiro shakes his head.

“Not this time, Keith. You’re in too deep this time.” And with that, he turns and the doors slides shut behind him.

 

 

Keith gives it another five minutes too make sure nobody is listening in on them before he directs his attention to Allura. She was sitting on a chair, head buried in her hands, and Keith feels a little more lump form in his throat for the guilt that has been building up.

He takes a painful gulp, pushing it all down. He’s already made peace with his decision, and pushed on with it. Now he has to see it through.

“Allura”, his voice came out raspy, and he clears his throat, “Allura, listen”—

“I trusted you Keith,” her voice muffled by her hands. “I trusted you, even if you were a Galra, because- because I knew who you are. You had Galran blood but you’re not the enemy… now- now I’m not so sure I could say the same. I t _hreatened_ the Alliance for accusing one of my paladins, until they proved me wrong. _Quiznak_ , it’s not even about the Alliance, or Voltron. You- you’re _family_.”

Keith dips his head, knowing full well how much he’d hurt Voltron by what he did, but coming up face to face with it— he wished things happened differently.

“I’m sorry but- I’m going to ask you to trust me one more time. This time, it’s not about Voltron or me,” Keith comes as close as he can get to the cell barrier without hurting himself. “Allura, someone is conspiring to use Voltron to put planets under the Alliance.”

Allura lifts her head up, confused. “Isn’t that the point?”

“There are plans of colonising smaller planets.”

“Yes! Planets that can’t hold up on their own, these were planets colonised by the Galran empire, planets that helped the Galra.”

“By violent means? This stands against everything we fought for! This is not Voltron!”

Allura is  standing up now, stomping close to Keith’s cell. “Don’t you dare talk to me about Voltron, when you’ve just kill dozens of people in this planet, innocent people!”

“Dammit, Allura, don’t you think we’ve been together long enough to know that I couldn’t kill a bunch of innocent people? I’m not the friendliest among the paladins, sure, but I’m not some cold blooded killer.”

“Then how would you explain the dead bodies, Keith? Why were you even in there?”

“I,” Keith hesitated, unsure how to explain something he himself couldn’t figure out. How could anyone have done it in the short period of time he was extracting information from the archives? “I don’t know, somebody must have followed me in.”

Allura scoffs, unimpressed, so he presses on. Time is ticking on them, and faster still on this planet, “The files are in Red, in the processor Pidge gave to us. Lance would know the passcode. You can ask him, Red would let him in.” 

His voice wavers a bit saying Lance name, but Allura must have noticed it because her features softens. Just a little bit. “You’ve got a lot to make up to Lance for all this.”

He winced, almost afraid to ask. “How’s he holding up?”

“Not well”, she bites back. “Obviously. He’s still convinced the court must’ve missed something that points the accusations away from you, going back and forth the archives and the court non-stop. Won’t listen to Hunk’s attempts in making him rest a bit ever since they threw you into prison.” 

Keith scrunches his brows, that was 5 earth days ago. He really wishes he was out of this cell soon, if only to check in on Lance. God, does he even want Keith anymore?

The princess was considering him with a cold stare. “I’ll check what you got. This better be worth it, Keith.” With a final shake of her head, she walks out, doors hissing open and close with a conclusive thud.

Keith sinks down to his cot. It better be.

 

 

 

Keith wakes up several hours later and immediately senses a familiar presence in the room. His heart reacts faster than his brain can catch up with, already racing lightyears forward to where his visitor sat quietly.

Before he can realise it, he is already standing up and approaching the barrier. Drawn to it like a magnet. All his senses are tingling, revelling in the sight, the smell, just the very thought that Lance is here. In the room with him. He could very well be vibrating in excitement, it’s been almost two weeks since he last saw his husband, last kissed his husband, and Keith is _starved_.

He’s sure if he had a tail, he’d be wagging it right now.

“Lance!”, he blurts out. It’s Lance! Lance! He’s here!

Childish giddiness fills him when Lance fixed his eyes at Keith, the simple pleasure of having to say Lance name, to call out to him and to get a response. It’s worth more than anything, in his deprived imprisoned state.

But then he notices the icy blue of his eyes, red-rimmed and tired. The clamminess, the paleness. The hair that looks like it hadn’t been washed for days. He’s wearing the same clothes he had when Voltron and the Alliance representatives came for questioning. There’s an unnatural silence and heavy atmosphere surrounding him and it sets Keith edgy. He knows this won’t turn out to be the reunion he was hoping for.

And because Keith is a little shit, and he’s already doomed anyway, he figured he might as well jump into the fire, “You look like shit.”

“ _You’re_ shit.”, Lance bites out. His arms were crossed, shoulders squared and Keith knows this would be a long fight. The kind that happens when he gets himself into trouble, or forgets to call out of their dinner dates, the ones that gets rehashed when they are both upset and kicks the other one to sleep in the couch. Those fights that actually hurt.

Keith works out his jaw to try and say something, anything, to make this all better.

“Start grovelling, Keith.”

He wets his lips, “I- Look, I’m sorry I got caught”—

Lance gapes incredulously. “GOT CAUGHT?? Got caught?!”

The look on his face is livid, practically murderous. “How about the other perfectly legitimate reasons to be sorry for?! Like- oh I don’t know, sneaking into forbidden alien territory?”

“That was—“

 “Accessing prohibited data…”

“But there’s—“

“Causing massive multi-planetary tension…”

“I didn’t—“

“Shiro is fucking devastated!”

Keith bit his lip. Yeah, he already knew that.

“I honestly can’t think of anything you could be sorry about— Oh yes! You forgot your _promised_ dinner date with me. I got a call about your death penalty _on our anniversary_!”

Shiiiiiiiittttttake mushrooms.

Anniversary. Right. They did that. Don’t worry, Keith totally remembers. He’s totally not doing some mad planning about trying to bribe Hunk into sending some belated flowery surprise in his head at the moment. Hey, better late than never, right?

No wonder he didn’t come to visit sooner.

“Just to be clear, you’re mad about the dinner date and not the death penalty, right?”

“Fuck you, asshole!”, Lance chucks a shoe at him from across the room, only to be stopped inches away from his face by the barrier. An electric pulse went through the semi opaque wall, setting static along its surface and raising goosebumps all over his face and neck. 

Keith doesn’t flinch, only looks at Lance as he picks himself up and starts pacing across the room. They’ve been throwing each other more physically harmful objects than shoes over the course of their relationship. In a weirdly loving manner. It was a healthy relationship.

“God, I’m so freaking mad at you right now! I don’t even know how to start talking about- about what we should be talking about. Just- fuck! Couldn’t you have at least waited the day after our anniversary to do some vigilante espionage? But nooo— you just had to walk into a government protected area and wreak havoc. You know what, Mama was right, she told me not to fall for edgy people… Why do I always fall for edgy people?!” He threw his arms out, head directed at the prison ceiling as if accusing it for pitting him to a life with Keith.

In truth, Keith would rather Lance was screaming his head off, blowing a gasket. Normally it’s Keith who was all raging ‘I’m-gonna-fucking-murder-you-yah-hear-me’ and Lance was more placid ‘I’m-gonna-fucking-murder-you-maybe-but-in-a-cool-way’. But when things went south, deepest circles of hell south, Lance tends to cave in, withdrawing more and more into himself. 

Which was stupid. Kind of disturbingly heart-breaking. Because Keith thinks their marriage was pretty fucking reason enough for Lance not to feel like he should be facing things alone anymore. He had no business being gloomy. He’s Lance and he’s the sun, and Keith is determined to make it stay that way. What even is he’s purpose if he can’t be what his husband needed him to be?

He sighed internally, _stupid prison_.

“And tomorrow you’re gonna be hanged… God, I’m too young to be a widower! I can’t- I can’t even think- You’d be gone and I’m gonna be left alone. Shit! I’m going to wake up everyday, without you, and like I have to make you a shrine… that’s- that’s a thing in your culture, right? And I’m gonna sit there, everyday, thinking about how our last memory is me throwing a shoe at you. I’m gonna be alone because- because _there can’t be fucking anybody else that I could love other than you!_ ” 

He might have felt his heart swell, then break. Lance has slowed his pacing until he finally stopped right in front of Keith. Suddenly, he sinks down and tucks his knees to his chest. 

“Fuuuuuuuccckkkk, you’re gonna die… and I’m gonna die alone and lonely… right now I can’t- I can’t even touch you…”

He hears a sniffle, and Keith just about lost it. He was endeared, that Lance was prepared to make him a shrine if- if he died but his heart has dropped somewhere in his stomach, threatening to make him sick. Lance was afraid of living alone, and dying alone. Just the thought that someone put the idea in his head makes Keith want to punch the jerk. Then he realises that he is that jerk.

He drops down to level with Lance, trying to get him to look. “Hey, hey…”, he starts soothingly. “It’s not- this is not how I pictured our life to be. Or how it would end, but…”

 But… but what? Keith was babbling, initially intending to be comforting, when all he really wanted to say is ‘I love you, I don’t want to leave you.’

“But… there wasn’t any second of it, of loving you and living with you, that I would change… even if I landed in prison eventually.”

Damn, death was making him feel things. Emotion- things… 

The little shit.

Lance glared at him, all snot nosed and messy. So adorable. “No, _you_ landed yourself in prison. Don’t drag me in with you.”

He cracks up a smile. “‘I’m glad we signed the prenup.”

Lance huffs, wagging an accusing finger at him. “Nope. No, no, no, no— you don’t get to be cool about your own death, when I’m not. Nope.”

“All I hear from you is telling me I’m ‘cool’.”

“God, you’d make an awful middle schooler.” But there is a shy smile in Lance’s face, and his eyes are getting clearer by every second.

“Jokes on you, I didn’t get proper education."

And just for a moment they forget the prison cell, and everything else shoving its way in between them. In it’s place the things that lasts forever, a feeling, a thought, an emotion… the things that directed their stars together, demanded that they find each other in this vast universe.

He was kind of pissed now, because they couldn’t have put the two of them together minus the other stuff. Like tragic backstories, alien wars, and just the general constant state of life-threatening.

“I’m sorry.” His attention snaps back to Lance. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find anything— couldn’t convince them that you’re— even to at least reduce the punishment… I failed y—…”

“No.” Keith says firmly, “No, this is all on me, Lance. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

When Lance doesn’t say anything, he continues, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, well, as fine as I could be— Go to Hunk’s, I don’t want you to be alone tomorrow.”

Lance is shaking his head, “No, I want to be here.”

“Don’t. Please, I can’t bear to think—“

They both jump when the door hisses open suddenly and the guards come in, signalling their time is up. Keith feels slightly panicked, every second could be their last.

“I’ll be here.” Lance says resolutely, and Keith knows very well from past hair-pulling frustrated arguments that he’d never convince him otherwise.

 

 

 

 

Time inside prison is confusing. There was no way to tell how many hours has passed, no telling when ‘tomorrow’ is going to come, when the sentinels are going to come. 

When his time is going to come.

In that empty space where he waited endlessly, his thoughts were his only companion.

And his own thoughts are part demonic, part apocalyptic big bang. A large-scale evolution of evaluating his life and choices. And life-choices; he’d never considered the two words connected in any way. He probably should, to avoid further imprisonment to death penalty situations.

So it’s not much surprise when, in the back corner of his cosmic microwave mind, he finally picks up a piece of a puzzle and puts it right next to a word:

Lonely.

It’s not a feeling he’s ever acknowledged before, not even the long time in the dessert. He figures it’s because he’d literally grown up with it that it had become an almost friendly companion. An imaginary friend he’d only grown up from after meeting Lance.

Lance changed his perspective.

Lance is happiness, and being introduced to real happiness made him aware of what true loneliness felt like.

And it was this: the idea that in the vast weightlessness of this universe, of life, he was about to unlatch from his only real anchor. He’s about to leave Lance.

There was a time when Kolivan still lead the Blade of Marmora, when the Blade was still what it once was, that a mission went awry and he’d been thrown into space. He doesn’t remember much, but this dead beat fear, like cotton in your ears, and the only company was your own frantic breathing. He remembers scrambling for any kind of material to cling unto, desperate to find any sort of gravity. He remembers feeling like your insides are being pulled apart, like they could just pop out in all directions, because your body actually needs gravity as much as your sanity does.

That’s what he wants to do, he wants to come back to Lance.

But as it was, he could only count his frantic breathing.

 

 

 

Keith blinks several times before realising he’s in total darkness, and that’s the point when he really starts panicking.

_This is it, this is it, this is it…_

He thinks he can hear Lance’s voice if he imagined hard enough. Thinks the honey and milk that flows through Lance’s tongue whenever he says Keith’s name like it’s all the good in the world.

He thinks he can hear a backdrop of other voices too, and he know’s the playground ruckus of Voltron. Knows it in bright particles of light and neon happy colors.

He feels himself relax, comforted by the fact that he can think of them in light.

That’s okay, that’s how he wants to die.

 

_“Pidgey, can you open this stupid door for me?”_

_“Can I? Hmm…Can I tear down this bitch? Please.”_

 

Keith throws his eyelids wide open. He was positively going crazy.

But then a light from the corner of his vision throws the entire cell into hazy shadows and he looks towards it.

Lance’s unmistakeable silhouette outlined in the tiny patch of light.

 

“Bet you’re glad you married my ass now, huh?”

 

The serene silence is abruptly cut by a resounding bang and everything was chaos. The cell lit-up like a fire cracker as a a group of five droids followed a sprinting Lance into the room. The walls banged with every ricocheting shot, and Keith watched with his heart on his throat as Lance dodged and aimed one droid after the other.

He’s not using his bayard and doesn’t have any armour on, only a skin tight body suit to keep his insides intact. And as much as it was doing wonders on his ass, and Keith’s touch-starved mind, he also wanted him to not be dead hopefully.

Keith barks a warning shout when the last droid came up behind his husband, but Lance had already hit the floor twisting back haphazardly and shooting it square on the head.

The droid drops smoking on the floor and Lance launches himself up, heaving great pants of breath.

“What the hell is happening?” Keith demands, because if he thinks what’s happening is actually happening, then he doesn’t want to make a foolish step into further dragging his husband with him.

But Lance only grunts a clipped, “Pidge,” and the barrier cascades down into the walls. Keith pushes himself of the cot and steps towards it, experimentally putting a hand through the sensors to make sure it was safe. He’d only barely survived the electric shock the first time he tried to go through without any thought.

“Hey!”, he called when Lance clamps a hand on his wrist and started dragging him towards the door and out through the winding corridors. “Lance. What’s happening?”

Keith heard the gun loading up a shot and only had a split-second to instinctively unlock his jaw and relax his muscles when a startling shock went through him. It lasted for about five seconds, and the next thing he knows he’s on the floor wheezing pathetically.

“That,” Lance was leered down at him, shadows making his usually angelic face ten times more sinister than Zarkon’s, “Is for landing your sorry ass in jail, mister.”

Okay. He deserved that.

He was just recovering from the first one when another shock went through his body. He flops uselessly on the floor, five seconds later, bones tingling from the aftershock and he faintly hears a burning smell.

“What,” he squeezed through gulps of air, “… the hell… was that for?!”

“That’s so you’d stay down.”

And he turns around just as a horde of droids came barrelling through the end of the hall. Lance switches the nuzzle to deadly shots and started loading up a firing round. The droids were coming up to them now, twenty feet… fifteen feet…

Keith wiggles his toes and fingers, getting them to feel faster. They could at least get through half of them, if they went _together._

“Pidge?” Lance gritted into a communicator warningly.

Ten feet…

The lights on the hallways suddenly glowed green, and Pidge’s unmistakeable voice echoed, howling gleefully,

“PRISON BREAK!!!!”

Lance dove to the floor in a roll just as a line of of laser light passed through the whole corridor. Keith felt the hairs on his cheeks rising, and he knows he should be glad he was sprawled pathetically on the floor. Almost the entire squadron of droids stuttered in a sparkling mess, dropping down to the floor.

A static of chaotic mess blasts through the speakers. Keith chuckled exasperatedly to himself. It’s fucking MCR’s You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison.

Lance recovers from his roll and launches himself to the nearest droid, shooting it at point blank. He steps left, and roundhouses another to the ground, smashing it on the chest with his other foot as manhandles another one and throws it at a group advancing on him.

 _Damn._ Keith forces himself off the floor. He is not about to get outdone in his own prison break.

 

_To wage this war against your faith in me._

_Your life… will never be the same_

_On your mother’s eyes, say a prayer, say a prayer_

 

Several wobbling steps later and he’s joined into the fray. Ducking down from every shot and knocking several guns out of the droid’s hands, which was useless as a gun once out of a magnetic signal system, but is good enough for clubbing a few of them down.

 

_Pain in my heart for your dying wish._

_I’ll kiss your lips again._

 

Lance gives him a double take when a droid behinds suddenly drops to the floor unmoving. “What the hell? I thought I told you to stay down!”

“You didn’t tell me to stay down, you shot me to stay down.”

His husband makes a frustrated noise, “Keith. When someone shoots you to stay down, they want you to stay down! So you stay the fuck down!”

“Lance, if you think I’m gonna let you handle these guys alone then you must be crazier than I am.”

“Clearly!”

“Honey, there’s a good reason you thought to shot me in the first place.”

“CLEARLY!”

A glinting light flashed in front of his eyes, and he grabbed at it without conscious thought. It was his Marmora blade. He grinned back at Lance, before turning back to the havoc.

 

_Life is but a dream for the dead,_

_And well I, I won’t go down by myself,_

_But I’ll go down with my friends._

 

He was down to the last droid when he turns around just in time to see Lance aiming straight at him. He yelps and flinches back, missing the searing shot by a hairsbreadth.

“What the hell, man??”

Lance looks at him innocently. “Oops I missed.” Then he sprinted to another alley and left Keith stoking as Pidge obnoxiously hoots in the speaker and changes the music.

 

_If you wanna start a fight_

_You better throw the first punch_

_Make it a good one_

 

_And if ya wanna make it through the night_

_You better say my name like_

_The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty_

 

Keith flips a finger at the nearest surveillance camera and follows Lance along a corridor with a haughty arrow on glowing holographs with the words: ‘Do I have to do everything here?’ and ‘Follow the light bitches!’.

 

 

 

“Lance.” He nudges insistently, which is probably dangerous seeing as how they were flying through an asteroid belt to avoid the Alliance system following them. “Lance.”

“What the shit is it now, Keith? I try to be with you on your death day, you don’t like it. I try to bust you out of prison, you don’t like it. I try to keep you alive in a fight, you don’t like it. So help me god, if you’re gonna refuse to come quietly while I get you to a safe zone, then I might as well eject you to the killer rocks outside. You and them will get along _swell_.”

“Oooooohhoooohooo!” Pidge cheers from the tiny communicator on the dashboard. Keith thinks he can hear Hunk in there too, “Yeah! Wreck him Lance. Drag him! Skin him alive!”

Lance punches the communicator angrily and the small flier ship lapse into an uncomfortable silence.

“If you’re putting yourself in danger just because of me. Please, don’t make yourself an enemy of the Alliance. There’s enough suffering Galran-blood could give.”

“Wouldn’t. It. Just. Go. Through. Your. Thick. Furry. Head.” Lance jaw is locked and his words come out haltingly as he wades through one asteroid to another.

“I’m your husband.”

The ships banks sharply to the left.

“We’re a family.”

The ship swoops down gut-wrenchingly.

“We don’t leave anyone behind.”

Keith couldn’t help flinching as they narrowly missed a huge rock.

“And I’m definitely not! Gonna let my husband die!” Lance suddenly sweeps an angry elbow through his eyes. His eyes came out red and wet. “You fucking asshole!”, he throws in for good measure.

Keith could only gulp, taken aback by Lance’s outburst. Then slowly, slowly starts reaching out to his face. And wipes the tears away.

“Okay,” he simply replies.

 

 

“Angry Lance is sexy though, babe, your ass looks great.”

This time he didn’t stop the communicator flying at him and it hits him square in the face.

“You try to make a connection to the others.” He barks at Keith, but his grip on the throttle eases up and his ears were red.

 

 

 

“Prison Keith looks sexy too.” Lance says after a while, and Keith grins back.

A unison of pained groans ekes through the communicator. _Of course_ that’s what they hear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep…_

The communicator beeps irritatingly after a while and Keith blinks his eyes blearily. The two suns peeking through their cabin window are about to converge and he knows they’ve been knocked out for hours. He shifts under the cotton sheets and finds Lance, still naked, and still very much conked out. He presses a kiss on the freckles on his shoulders and buries his nose on his nape, snaking an arm around his waist to pull him closer.

_Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep…_

Lance jerks in his sleep, bottom lip twitching, and Keith pulls at it between his own lips for being cute. He pulls back with a sigh, reaching over to the desk to grab at the obnoxious thing.

“Yeah?” Keith talks softly to it, and peels himself off of Lance gently.

“Keith?” It’s Shiro.

“Heeeeeyyyyyyyy…” He stretched out, finding it awkward to be talking to him after their last exchange.

“Are you two okay? We lost track on the two of you after the P’sodian Belt.”

“Ehhh…” Keith thinks back at the heated sex they had right after they got out of electromagnetic range. They barely made it to the cabin Lance had pre-rented. “We’re good. Lance’s dead.”

“WHAT?!” Shiro barks loudly.

“—Tired. Dead tired. Sleeping.”

“Oh fucking…” The line went static as he exhaled on the speaker. “You kids are going to kill me prematurely.”

Keith snorts. “Like our occupational hazard isn’t enough of a reason.”

Shiro laughs softly. He goes silent for a little while and Keith shifts awkwardly where he stood by the window, looking down at the foggy mountains below.

“So we found the files you talked about Allura. I can’t believe some of our Allies stole the plans for that hyperspace expressway the Galras were going to build. We confronted them about it, and they went all political about it. Like yeah, I can understand the convenience of it, but the underlying gentle nudge of thermonuclear weapons? Jesus.”

He hums at the glass-like window, and watches a huge velociraptor fly just below their cabin. It’s a nice place, good view, more appealing by the fact that their rental cabin are literally built on a stalactite hanging down on the huge mountains. So yeah, if you’re afraid of heights, this probably isn’t the place for you.

“One thing I know about carbon-based lifeforms, is that they hate their own kind more than anything else in the universe.”

“At least it’s enough to be able to drop the charges on you. Not to mention some traffic droid caught you accidentally on a footage before the murders happened. So. You’re free. I think the investigation just went slowly because of your heritage.”

“Like I said, carbon-based lifeforms.”

Shiro chuckles, but simmers down just as quickly. “I’m sorry for not believing in you, Keith.”

Keith bites his lip. “That’s okay, it’s probably harder for you than it was for me. Makes you a good leader.”

“Still… I— I should’ve known better. We should’ve known better. We’re all sorry, Keith. For not believing in you… and for giving Lance a hard time.”

“What do you mean?” He looks at the sleeping form on the bed, shoulders rising and falling gently.

“Well… we were a little… unhelpful when he wouldn’t stop insisting you were innocent. He would never tell you this, but it went pretty bad. He’d probably gone through more trials than you have, the government kept being suspicious of him and they gave him a pretty hard time. They thought he was working with you the whole time, and it didn’t help that he was so adamantly opposed to your hanging. They probably only let him off a little easier because he’s your husband.”

Keith pads over to the bed and drops heavily on the floor by Lance’s side. God, he must’ve done something right to have deserved this. Just as well, he’d killed _a lot_ getting here.

“He’s always been closer than my own faith,” he mumbles to the receiver and to Lance. He strokes gently at the bags under his eyes.

“You deserve each other,” Shiro agrees.

They stay silent for a long while, he hears faint talking on the background as he continues massaging at the tension between Lance’s brows.

The static crackles to life again. “Well, I gotta go. We still have a couple of sessions to take before this whole things unwinds itself. You and Lance try… _please try_ , to go under the radar until the whole situation has blown over.”

“Don’t worry about that, Allura threatened me to make up to him for all this mess.”

“You better.”

“Oh, you bet. I’m gonna make up to him _so hard_ —.”

“-Ohp, okay. I’m gonna leave you two now. Good luck on your anniversary honeymoon.”

And the communicator clicks silent.

Keith studies the precious person beneath his hands with a smile, prays to God or whoever It is that rules this universe, to never let this go.

“Don’t worry.” He whispers into the kiss he brushes on his husband’s temple.

“I’ll never let this go.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The speakers went silent indefinitely and Pidge falls back on their chair with a giant huff.
> 
> “The ungrateful little shits, couldn’t even keep it in their pants long enough to thank me.”
> 
> Hunk smiles serenely, “I’m sure they just had a slight radio problem.”
> 
> Pidge throws the receiver chip taped to their cheek and the helper droid whined unhelpfully as it tried to catch the sailing trajectory of the chip.
> 
> “Nah, they’re totally fucking.”


End file.
